We started Distimo five years ago with the clear goal of providing the most accurate and actionable app data for anyone who wants to compete in the mobile marketplace. And it’s been a fantastic five years. We’ve built great technologies and products that have allowed you to really understand the app marketplace and take action on those insights. We’ve been very proud to serve some of the most exciting companies in the app industry and have built a global team of extremely talented and driven people.

Our vision and ambition continues to grow, and it is with that ambition that we feel joining forces with App Annie is the best next step for us to realize our goal of building the most complete platform for analyzing the app marketplace. We’re very excited to join a team that shares a common vision, and with the accumulated resources of both companies, we’re best equipped to serve your business better.

So what happens to the Distimo products? We’re going to be working closely with the App Annie team to integrate and merge all our best features into the App Annie platform. When this is complete, we will start a smooth migration process so that all of the data you hold with Distimo is seamlessly accessible on App Annie. We will keep all Distimo users and customers regularly updated.

If you have any questions whatsoever, feel free to reach out to us through our contact form. We’re excited about this next phase in our journey and we hope you are too.

League of War is a card battler where you assemble troops of soldiers, light and heavy vehicles and more, to battle against enemies in single player or other real players online.

League of War experienced some of its strongest rankings in the top free charts in Australia.

On the Australia iPhone top overall free chart, League of War catapulted to the No. 2 rank on May 18 (above). But a few days later, League of War lost steam, dropping below the top 100 on May 22. League of War’s stay outside the top 100 was short-lived. League of War reclaimed the No. 2 rank on May 23, remaining in the top 25 since. Continue reading →

There’s a cadre of apps creating a lot of buzz in the mobile app industry right now. That buzz is generated by a new breed of social sharing apps that allow you to post messages, anonymously.

The premise behind these anonymous social sharing apps is simple. Basically, these anonymous apps allow you to share your thoughts and feelings, anonymously. Also, these apps utilize your mobile device’s address book and your location to present you with a feed of anonymous messages from anonymous users near you, from your friends (anonymously, of course), from your friends of friends, and even from a wider group of users, which are selected by algorithms.

Some of the top players in the anonymous app space include Whisper (First seen April 27, 2012), Secret (first seen January 9, 2014) and Yik Yak (first seen November 7, 2013).

So far, people have used these anonymous apps for different purposes. Some people reveal juicy gossip, some disseminate heartfelt stories of love, and some spill their deepest, darkest secrets.

In lieu of Secret launching on Google Play and the iOS version expanding in more countries on Wednesday, we decided to lift the veil off the top anonymous apps on the Apple App Store.

Google Play recently expanded the game genres to cover a broader variety of games. Along with this update some previously existing genres Arcade & Action, Brain & Puzzle, and Cards & Casino were ‘discontinued’, as new and additional more confined genres were introduced, e.g. Card only. This month we took a detailed look at the Google Play Store and the impacts of this change. What kind of apps gained an advantage from this update? And how can developers benefit from this analysis in their app strategy?

The Impact on Market Shares

The following graphs show a partial impact of the update, looking at global device installs. Arcade & Action was the leading category with a 30 percent share in February 2014.
The game genres in the following graph, were available on Google Play before the update:
After the update a lot of games moved to the new games genres. As a result, the user installs were more widely spread over now three times as many genres as before. In April 2014, these moves brought the Casual genre to the top, with 18 percent of all global device installs:
The April overview after the update shows clearly, that the install volume is more spread out across the new genres. Half of the now 18 game genres showed a device install share of less than 4 percent.

These kind of changes give a lot of games an opportunity to stand out in a lower volume genre. We analyzed the updates for a number of different game genres and show the impact on app level in our May publication on the new game genres on Google Play.

Benefits from Switching to a New Genre

One of the cases analyzed in our publication was:
Games moving from the Casual genre to the new Family genre.

Almost the entire top 10 of the grossing charts in the new Family genre in April 2014, came from the Casual genre. The developers of these games saw an opportunity in the genre update to find a new and more matching home for their apps. This paid out with a higher visibility at the top of the charts due to remarkable increases in the ranks.Odd Socks by Oak Games Ltd (shown in purple in the graph above) for example, moved from Casual to the Family genre, as soon as the new sub-category became available on March 18th. While this game was ranked 125th in the global grossing charts of the Casual category before the change in March, the genre update paid out with global grossing rank 4 in the Family genre for the month of April.

Read the Full Report

For further impressive movers and the opportunities of the new game genres, read our full publication. We tracked where games listed in the ‘discontinued’ genres: Arcade & Action, Brain & Puzzle, Cards & Casino were relocated to; show to which genres most developers moved their games, and analyze the resulting impact of these changes in terms of rankings, device installs, and revenue. The complete press kit with all images used is available here.

Join Our Free Webinar

If you want to know more about the opportunities of the new Game genres on Google Play and the insights you can gain from Distimo’s AppIQ, please register for our free webinar on Wednesday, June 4th 2014 at 6:00 PM CET/ 9:00 AM PST.

Feel free to send us your questions regarding the topic in advance and we will try to cover those points in the webinar. We hope you enjoy the findings from our analysis.

Google’s YouTube is reportedly purchasing fast-growing, video platform and community for gamers, Twitch, for $1 billion in cash, according to unnamed sources from Variety. The Wall Street Journal later reported that YouTube and Twitch are only in the early stages of talking with each other.

Twitch is a video streaming service that enables users to watch, or broadcast their own, live gameplay sessions on a variety of platforms, including the PC, Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4.

Twitch also has its service available on the Apple App Store, Google Play and the Amazon Appstore. With the mobile app, users can view any live broadcast and chat with other users, but they can’t stream their own gameplay from, say, a mobile game.

We trotted through estimated downloads data from our app market intelligence tool AppIQ, analyzing the iOS platform to see if Twitch has shown signs of growth on mobile.

Twitch on iOS has shown consistent growth over the past few quarters. When comparing the full year 2012 to 2013 (Q1 2012 to Q4 2013), global downloads for Twitch on the Apple App Store increased by 151 percent (above) — a healthy sign of growth for Twitch’s platform. Continue reading →

Fox’s popular animated series Family Guy made its small screen debut last month (first seen April 8) on mobile handsets and tablets worldwide in Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff.

From the San Francisco-based game maker TinyCo, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff (free) is a city-builder in the same vein as hit game The Simpsons: Tapped Out from Electronic Arts.

Now, Family Guy and The Simpsons aren’t only competing against each other for TV ratings, they’re jockeying for position on the top apps charts on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

With a over month under its belt on the Apple App Store and Google Play, we decided to visit Quahog, and check rankings data from Distimo App Trends on Family Guy: A Quest for Stuff.

Seeing that Family Guy is an animated series from the U.S., we sifted through its top overall grossing ranks on the iPhone and iPad in the U.S.

In the past month, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff has maintained a spot in the top 25 of the U.S. iPhone top overall grossing chart (above) — reaching as high as No. 17 on April 17. The Simpsons: Tapped Out, the closest competitor to Family Guy, managed to rank within the top 10 on the U.S. iPhone top overall grossing chart in the past month.

On Apple’s tablet, Family Guy held down a spot within the top 50 on the U.S. iPad top overall grossing chart in the past month. Family Guy topped out in the past month at No. 33 on April 17 (above). On iPad, The Simpsons has secured a top 20 position on the U.S. iPad top overall grossing chart in the past month, tapping out at the No. 7 rank on April 18.

While The Simpsons: Tapped Out is currently outpacing Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff on iOS, TinyCo has executed its master plan to get another game in the top grossing charts — a plan that even Stewie Griffin would be proud of. We look forward to monitoring the growth of Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff in the coming months.

First, it was Monument Valley, a paid game without in-app purchases, generating over 50 percent of its total global revenue on the Apple App Store in its first seven days of availability. Now, it’s Leo’s Fortune, another paid game with no in-app purchases, generating more than 50 percent of its total global revenue on iOS in its first seven days of availability.

From 1337 & Senri, Leo’s Fortune, which rolled out worldwide on April 23, is making another strong case for publishers and developers that premium-priced paid mobile games can generate a lot of revenue on the the Apple App Store.

In Leo’s Fortune, you assume the role of Leo, a ball-shaped, mustache-clad creature that’s covered in fuzz, who’s on a quest to recover his fortune. You’re tasked with rolling, sliding and bouncing Leo’s way through 24 levels, which are filled with puzzles, traps and obstacles.

Apple is currently honoring Leo’s Fortune in the Apple App Store as the Best Game in the Best of April feature category. It’s quite the accolade for Leo’s Fortune, a mobile game priced at $4.99, to stand out from a sea of games priced at free.

We found that Leo’s Fortune mimicked Monument Valley, generating over 50 percent of its total global revenue on the Apple App Store in the first seven days of availability. In specific, through the first 20 days of release (April 23 to May 12), Leo’s Fortune generated 56 percent of its total global revenue in the first seven days of availability from April 23 to April 29 (above).

Playdead’s Limbo, which launched worldwide in July 2013 on the Apple App Store, was another paid game with a $4.99 price tag that showed the same trend as Leo’s Fortune. In particular, the Danish-developed Limbo, through the first 20 days of release (July 1, 2013, to July 20, 2013), generated 53 percent of its total global revenue in the first week of availability from July 1, 2013, to July 7, 2013 (above). Continue reading →

It’s been a wild year so far in the global mobile messaging app space. With many more months left in 2014, the dust has yet to settle on the messaging app battlefield.

Major messaging app players have been acquired, funded or added a significant amount of new features in 2014.

In February, Japanese Internet giant Rakuten acquired messaging app provider Viber Media for $900 million. A few days later, Facebook purchased mobile messaging service WhatsApp for $19 billion. The following month, U.S. IPO-bound Albiaba from China led the latest round of funding for messaging service Tango, investing $215 million of the $280 million in the round.

In early May, ephemeral photo messaging startup Snapchatadded a text chat component to its mobile app. The new text messaging feature put Snapchat in the same realm as messaging app juggernauts such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

One messaging app that has kept developing new features is Kik Messenger from Watlerloo, Ontario-based Kik Interactive.

We flipped through estimated downloads data from Distimo AppIQ to benchmark Kik’s current foothold in the messaging app space.

The first nugget of data that stood out to us was Kik’s total global downloads share on the Apple App Store in Saudi Arabia (above). In Saudi Arabia, Kik generated the fourth-most downloads in the country in Q1 2014, which equated to 3.42 percent of its total global downloads — just shy of third place Canada with a 3.47 percent share. Continue reading →

We’ve got another version of the Distimo App for iOS ready for you, with yet another set of interesting new features. To refresh your memory, the Distimo app allows you to keep track of your personal app data, such as daily downloads and revenues, rankings and reviews. Moreover, it exposes all free, paid and grossing leaderboards for apps and publishers in the major app stores. On top of all this, AppIQ users can compare their personal data against competitor data, and view download and revenue estimates of any app and publisher in the leaderboards. That said, let’s get to the new features!

Publications

Always wondered how the big guys climb the leaderboards? Or are you interested in monetization strategies for your next app? Our monthly publications give important insights into what moves the app stores. From now on, these publications are available from within the app!

Mobile Ad Tracking

Remember that in the previous version, we’ve started integrating ad revenue tracking. With the latest version of the app, we now offer full insight into the performance of your mobile ads from the palm of your hand. In the same manner you’re used to view your app downloads and revenues, the app now supports tracking performance per ad, ad network and country over a given timespan, giving you insight in key metrics, such as fill rates, impressions, eCPM and eCPC.

In-Apps & More Detailed Metrics

Following our App Analytics web tool, the app now supports a full drill down of your individual in-apps. Tap the arrow next to your application name in the Apps filter to expand and select the individual in-apps belonging to your app. On top of this, we added support for a whole range of additional metrics, including subscriptions, refunds, in-app revenue and more. It’s all in the details!

We’re always interested in hearing your opinion. Especially since you are app developers and/or publishers, your opinion is very valuable to us. In case of any good ideas, feedback or missing functionality, get in touch via Facebook or Twitter.

Angry Birds maker Rovio last week (May 6) soft launched a new game on the Apple App Store (iPhone and iPad) called Retry.

Retry (free) is the debut title from Lvl 11, a new, experimental development team within Rovio. LVL 11 is tasked with developing games that are outside of the Angry Birds brand.

The 8-bit-looking game tasks you with navigating a small plane through levels with devilishly-placed obstacles. As the name of the game implies, Retry sees you repeating levels until you achieve the sweet satisfaction of completing the stage.

Retry is taking its first flight in soft-launch in Canada, Finland and Poland, before arriving globally in the future.

Retry joins Angry Birds Epic, as the latest title from the Finnish game maker to be soft launched in the past couple of months.

We flew through ranking data from Distimo App Trends to see how Retry is fairing in its initial flight.

Flying Up the Charts

Retry quickly ascended to the top of the iPhone top overall free charts in the two European countries where it’s available. In Finland, Retry debuted at the No. 1 spot on the iPhone top overall free chart (above). In Poland, Retry achieved a top 10 rank on the top overall free chart in only its second day of availability (below). Continue reading →